Techniques to learn a language no-one told you about!

When you make a decision to learn a foreign language, most people are unaware of the real time and effort required to reach a level of fluency.

Result: More than half make excuses like ‘I was doing really well but it’s just too hard’ or ‘I just don’t have the time’.

Have you ever felt that way?

Well, we’re here to tell you about a few techniques that no-one told you about!

If you want to see some fast progress, we guarantee at least one of these methods will help you get solid results.

Forget the word ‘Difficult’

The challenge most learners have is that they are in a hurry to fill the gap between their native and target language.

The battle here is your expectations – you convince yourself that you need to perfect each and every word as quickly as possible. You are not letting your mind absorb the information and you rapidly move into the next phase, which makes everything complex and mentally exhausting.

Think about other challenges you have faced in life. We’ve all had them and yes, they were a struggle but you overcame them in time.

So, next time you are on the edge of giving up and you’re tempted to use those famous words – It’s too ‘Difficult’ ….

Think again!

Bypass the Mundane

We are all different, thank god for that!

There are some things that fill you with excitement and some that send you on a trance! There is no right or wrong way of learning, you need to find the best learning style that suits you as an individual.

For some it’s the traditional books, they need to see the written form in order to pick up the language. But for you, it might be music, telly, video games, apps, learning software’s or even language exchanges.

There is no point compelling yourself to do something you know you will give up on but you can give it a try and if it really doesn’t work, abandon it without any regret. Find your own style, this will be the most enjoyable and effective in the long run.

Fluency

There are many discussions centred around this word ‘Fluency’

The word itself is hard to define as the overall vision of fluency is massive. The objective of this word alone is so much bigger than it deserves to be.

So how should you define Fluency in your mind?

Well, it’s personal to you. Some people don’t need to know every single word to reach that level of fluency. Reminding yourself why you wanted to or needed to learn in the first place is important.

Was it for travelling?

Work?

Studying in general?

You’ve moved to a foreign country?

Your boyfriend/girlfriend speaks that language?

Whatever the reason, keep in mind that fluency for the language depends on our own ultimate goal. Let’s take work as an example, if you manage to get through your meeting without too much difficulties then, you can consider yourself virtually fluent and you should give yourself a pat on the back.

Like you evolve in your native language without knowing, always keep at the back of your mind, languages are about personal growth and endless improvement.

Making a commitment to succeed

Motivation is an enormous battle when self-teaching. Keeping the momentum and the energy to practice, learn, repeat especially when you work or study full-time can drain you out and yourself convince that abandoning your campaign is justifiable.

A large percentage of people will agree with this, we are sure the thought has crossed your mind too.

So how can we help here? It’s very simple…..

Recognise what you have already achieved and don’t let it go to waste. All that time and effort you’ve sacrificed learning, why let it go to waste?

Make a list of why you started learning (and not just in your mind) using a pen and paper and remind yourself of the end objective.

And then lastly, make a promise to yourself.

Why? Read below…..

‘If you promise yourself something, you don’t want to break that promise. If you do, it was just a lie in the first place’

Final thoughts….

One thing us learners like doing is stressing…

We put so much pressure on ourselves because we are not learning as quickly as our expectations.

You are crowding your mind and it needs a break. Allow your mind the time to breathe and relax, as you would need daily. Then go in all guns blazing….

And when you start again.. you should no longer be victims of the word ‘difficult‘ and that’s what’s going to get you solid results